It’s the economy, stupid!
James Carville. (Bill Clinton strategist 1992)
Recently I was at a meeting of local shopkeepers. I shall declare my interest at the outset; I was there to present to the panel a public sculpture project that I am currently working on for the purpose of gaining some funding to help us achieve our goal. This was the second time I have done this for the same group, but more on that in a future article, maybe! My representations to the group were, for the second time unsuccessful. Whilst I could be accused of masochism, in reality I like to remain blithely optimistic. Luckily, I have a hide thick enough to absorb the impact of such rejections. Across the year I am regularly making applications to arts funding bodies to try and help us achieve what we want to do with art in this area, roughly one in thirty is successful, admittedly not a great success rate but I suspect that the majority of those rejections are based on the sheer weight of application numbers. Because of this most rejection feedback is pretty worthless, but with this rejection though I was intrigued by the response given, and I am quoting from memory here…
It’s the children that are the future of the businesses, we don’t see how art will help the businesses on Dewsbury Road
Ex-Dewsbury Road Shopkeeper
The royal ‘We’ was presumably in reference to those who had voted no to my proposal, as I did actually get a number of yes votes, just not enough to make a successful bid. As always after a proposal is rejected I spend a bit of time trying to work what went wrong; did I not present the idea clearly enough, was it the wrong project for the application, and numerous other thoughts. The more that I thought about the response the more I realised just how wrong that statement was.
As those of you who may have read my articles in South Leeds Life over the last few years, or even attended any of our events at BasementArtsProject will know, we have created what I refer to as “a pocket sculpture park” at the corner of Dewsbury and Tunstall Road. Since getting ‘Jacob’s Ladder’ in place two years ago and having since landscaped around it, we have ultimately changed the nature of the space it now occupies. Even at difficult times such as these it never gets as bad as it was before ‘The Corner’ Pocket Sculpture Park came into being, the behaviour and litter issues are manageable and fairly easily solved. At the best of times, we have run carving workshops and concerts and it is regularly used by families having picnics on the benches, made by the community, or to just let the children free to run whilst the parents wait for the 86.
So, how does art help the businesses on Dewsbury Road?
The answer to this is that it provides people in the locality with an outdoor area in which they can hang. Even with the madness that often happens on this corner it is still a little oasis amongst the trees that feels reasonably calm and relaxed. On a corner where people never used to stop, chivvied on by other less than savoury things occurring in that space, they do now, and they buy food from the local shops which they then sit on ‘The Corner’ and consume. Despite the increased al fresco food consumption the litter is still nominal, people are, on the whole, respecting the work that has been done and are keeping it tidy. In fact the most difficult thing to keep on top of now is the collaborative project between the wind and overflowing public bins. Basement will be installing a new public bin at the edge of the land at some point in the next couple of months in the hopes of easing the pressure on the street bins.
But this is not just about people buying sandwiches and drinks at local shops, maybe having a sit down and then having a wander around the nearby charity shop after lunch. It is about much more than that. It is about a long-term plan for the area that seeks to improve the quality of the environment in a pleasant and interesting way with the involvement , or at least support, of the community. To this end BasementArtsProject has three, potentially four, other projects that could change an entire hundred yard stretch of road from the Middleton Steam Railway up to the junction of Tunstall and Dewsbury.
With regards to the project mentioned at the top of this article; BasementArtsProject are still working with the artist Annabelle Richmond-Wright to produce the artwork intended for the planter at the junction next to St Luke’s Cares Charity Shop, by hook or by crook we will find a way of raising the money to do it, it will just take a bit longer than we hoped. The project is roughly halfway through, having worked on producing some of the sculptural elements with the children of St Luke’s Primary School, New Bewerley Primary School and Cockburn John Charles Academy; as well as with members of the local community through the Hamara Centre and St Luke’s Cares Charity Shop. This brings me to the other point in that original statement “the children are the future of the businesses on Dewsbury Road”. Through art we, BasementArtsProject, regularly engage with the community through our work in a way that adds value to the environment. Art is subjective; what one person loves another hates, but that is fine. What we must acknowledge is that its presence in the public realm can help people. Involving people in the creation of artworks can be a part of what it means to build a community that is invested in its own future. At this point I will point back to my statement last month that “One has to be able to imagine a future in order to start planning for it.”
If we succeed in creating our sculpture at the junction of Dewsbury Road, many people, years down the line from now, may be able to look at it and say – that is my hand, that is my portrait, that is my flower, I did that twenty, thirty, forty years ago when I was at school. It was not just children, but adults too through the community centres. As with the benches, made by the community to accompany ‘Jacob’s Ladder’, people will be able to look with pride at something that they were involved in and know that they made a difference. Imagine, a litter-free Tunstall/Dewsbury Road with more trees, public art, maybe some cafés not trading in fast-food and cheap alcohol.
A final thought regarding the meeting that opened this piece. At an earlier meeting I was singled out by one of the members of the board as being someone who has sat there at previous meetings “tapping away at his laptop like [name redacted] over there, but nothing ever gets done”. I would argue that ‘The Corner’ Pocket Sculpture Park, conceived and designed by myself, with ‘Jacob’s Ladder’ by Keith Ackerman at the heart of it, are evidence of Basement and those who support our ambition getting things done. I would challenge the naysayers of that meeting to look at their own contributions and ask themselves what their contributions to the community have been.
To those who gave me thumbs up. Thank you! We will succeed, and we will make this corner of South Leeds a nice and desirable place to be, with its own culture, built from within! Watch this space and feel free to join us…
I am currently writing a future post regarding sculptures for Dewsbury Road and an update on the work by Dominic Hopkinson.
Don’t they realise that when people and children feel part of a project. (even the public that watched Jacobs Ladder taking form as he worked on it outside in public view as we walked down tunstall road) The children and adults who help build something will want to look after it and not vandalise things. A bit like kids helping litter pick wont throw their sweet papers on the floor. I cannot see how funding can be given for a mural (though I am fully for this) facing tunstall road yet against this sculpture. Both will be an asset to the area
Thanx for that Linda, I am totally in agreement and for that reason I believe that community engagement is essential. Whether through workshops, lunches or just visiting shows and talking to people from different backgrounds, that is how people start to develop a sense of ownership, the sense that a different future is possible, one that is better than the present not worse. The project that I am developing with Annabelle, our Middleton based artist, for the Dewsbury Road Site has involved 150 people from the local community between Beeston Hill St Luke’s Primary School and Cockburn John Charles Academy. The work that we eventually create will incorporate the work that they produced for us in clay and casting in alginate. The youngest participant in these workshops was 4 and the oldest, as far as I am aware 81. I imagine some of the younger kids in later life being able to walk down Dewsbury Road and telling their Kids “That is my hand” or “my flower”, “my portrait” etc…
Back in early 2015, I was invited in to the group in question in this article to develop a call out for a public art commission for the area.
Eventually I was ditched. I don’t know why! Maybe they, the group, did not think that I was capable of running a public art commission, and The Tetley were instead drafted in to develop the commission.
The commission was eventually put out. I applied as an artist as I was no longer connected with the development of the commission. After getting down to the last three the commission was eventually won by an artist from Sheffield -Christopher Jarrett.
The commission, two sculptures for Dewsbury Road, never happened in the end and the money that had been set aside for the project remains to this day with the group. The money was specifically attached to a commitment to improve the local area for shopkeepers. The question regarding the funding of such projects as murals and sculptures in communities is how a limited amount can achieve a lasting effect. Business can only benefit if the whole community benefits. It becomes all about changing the mindset and behaviour of people within communities. If people feel like they are respected then they will act accordingly. Unfortunately the businesses on Dewsbury Road do nothing to help themselves in terms of generating that feeling of respect by the amount of mess that they create and the general condition that they leave the area in.
The encampment issue around Jacob’s Ladder was created by Aldi and Jet Garage collectively who refuse to look after the land that they own.
It has been nearly a month since the encampment was moved on and things are starting to return to normal, although they have done a lot of damage to the grass and trampled all of the flowers that I planted before Christmas, I do persist in my mission to make South Leeds a better, and aesthetically more pleasing, please to live. ‘Jacob’s Ladder’ exists because, with assistance from the Henry Moore Institute, Yorkshire Sculpture Park and Leeds City Council, it was paid for by the artist and his technician and we (Basement included) all worked for free for three years to do it. I do believe that it is the involvement of creative people that will ultimately bring about positive change in society.
I will end on this paragraph from my latest post on SLL which I think expresses the problem as it exists at the moment and how we need to start thinking if we are to change stuff.
“Last week I had one of the saddest conversations of recent times. As I was shopping I was approached by a homeless man with whom I have shared a number of brief asides over the last few years. He had, I suspect unwittingly, been part of the encampment mentioned in the post at the outset of this article. He asked me if I was a stone mason. I know that he associates me with ‘Jacob’s Ladder’ as he had watched it being created over the course of three years. “No” I responded “I just worked with Keith and John, the actual stone masons, on the project around the corner”. “It’s nice that… Jacob’s Ladder… it looks really good.” he replied. “It makes a difference… Thanks”. And with that he shuffled off to help someone with a trolley. This is not the first sign of appreciation that I have had from this person, he has often stood at a distance and listened as I have given talks to groups of students on the land about the making of ‘Jacob’s Ladder’. I like this guy; under the right circumstances I could imagine him living a contented life of minimal fuss, but society has failed him. Unlike the local shopkeepers who do not see the point in art, this guy gets it, he understands why we do the things we do. For him it is not about what can be extracted from the community in the form of profit, it is about the things that we bring to the table that improve the quality of life and provide an environment in which aspiration can thrive.”